Sioux City, IA - The Sioux City Explorers announced today that INF Jose Sermo was named the 2018 American Association Player of the Year. It is the second time that a Sioux City Explorer has been tabbed the league’s player of the year as Nate Samson earned the award in 2016.

In 2018, Jose Sermo hit .310 while crushing 22 home runs, driving in 81 runs, scoring 76 runs and swiping 24 bases, while putting together an OPS of 1.050. Sermo finished the season as the league leader in RBI’s. Sermo was also named to his first American Association Post Season All Star team and was also named the American Association’s player of the week for the final week of the regular season.

The 22 home runs were the second most in the American Association this season trailing only Tony Thomas of Wichita who had 23. He also became just the third Sioux City Explorer in franchise history to hit 20 or more home runs in a single season. It is the second most home runs in a season in X’s franchise history behind only Kevin Garner’s 27 in 1997. It is also the most home runs that a player has hit in 5 seasons that Steve Montgomery has managed the team.

Sermo became the first Sioux City Explorer in franchise history to put together a 20 home run and 20 stolen base season. He is the third player in league history to put together such a season as Reggie Abercrombie did it twice (2010, 2016) and Denis Phipps (2016). However, Sermo also smacked 23 doubles to become the first player in league history to put together a season of at least 20 homers, 20 stolen bases and 20 doubles.

The 27 year old Sermo is a native of Bayamont, Puerto Rico. Played his college baseball at Bethany College and Valley Community College. He was then drafted in the 2012 MLB Draft by the Milwaukee Brewers. He would spend three seasons with the Milwaukee Brewers making it as high as AA. After being released by the Brewers at the end of the 2014 season, Sermo wound up playing in the Frontier League with the Frontier Grey’s to begin the 2015 season before ending up with the Gary SouthShore RailCats. He would finish off the 2015 season with Gary and began the 2016 season with them and played with the RailCats for the first month of the 2016 season before having his contract purchased by the Boston Red Sox. He would spend the rest of the 2016 season and all of the 2017 season with the Red Sox High A affiliate. Sermo then signed with the Winnipeg Goldeyes before the 2018 season. But only played four games for the Fish before being released and scooped up by the Sioux City Explorers on May 25th.

2018 Playoff tickets are on sale now for Friday, September 7th, Saturday, September 8th and Sunday, September 9th (if necessary), reserve your seats by stopping down to the stadium box office, order online at www.xsbaseball.com or by calling the Sioux City Explorers at 712-277-WINS (9467). Group Discounts available for groups of 10 or more!